Slashdot Mirror
Can a Computer Identify Your Urban Tribe?
Zothecula writes "Whether it's fashion, a favorite football team, or a certain kind of music, humans seem to enjoy being considered part of a larger group, and often self-identify as such. With this in mind, students from the University of California, San Diego Jacobs school of Engineering are currently developing a computer algorithm that can deduce from an image whether you're a goth, surfer, hipster, or biker."
Urban Tribe: Neckbeard
I sent the tribe an e-mail stating, "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any tribe that will accept people like me as a member".
Many of us are disturbed by the idea of automated facial recognition being coupled with all the video surveillance that's becoming more and more prevalent in public places, to track us wherever we go, and that's bad enough. Now you're telling us that they're taking it to the next level and developing automated video profiling software? Is the world of Minority Report just around the corner?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Right now, it's correctly indentified every one of the students who sat down in front of it as "overweight nerd"
Everybody is unique. Just like everybody else...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Cosplayers might break your Pseudocode. Lots of dark clothing and non-standard hair colors as well as face make-up / lighter skin tones.
I ran it myself and it said, "Loser."
It says I'm a terrorist...Hold on...Someone is at the door
Defending something for which you have no part in its success is silly to me. Whether it be sports or being a Windows fanboy, I just don't get it. The blind patriotism some people have is also baffling. Being a groupie and making arguments on behalf of people/companies/teams as if their actions somehow reflect on you as a person is delusional, sorry.
Even this perspective makes you part of an "urban tribe", the "non-conformity conformists".
whether you're a goth, surfer, hipster, or biker
As often happens, I was placed in "none of the above" when social classification came around.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Alas, the Slashdot tribe, whatever its merits or faults might once have been, no longer survives as an independent tribe. Through a complex intriguing, its once-leader, Cmdr. Robert "Taco" Malda, committed treachery and sold the tribe into slavery. After changing hands at several slave markets through a series of owners dissatisfied with their purchase, the entire tribe is now, believe it or not, owned by a pair of dice.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It seems to me that the only application for this sort of this is attempting to attract venture capital to create a "business" that can be sold to Facebook/Google/Yahoo/whatever to aid in their quest to give marketers even more information which they think might help them sell more stuff.
While this is unsurprising, it's also pathetic. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
I would consider myself a member of at least five different tribes. While there is overlap between these tribes the overlap is nowhere near complete. For example I am a crafter and a gamer. While there are many gamers who are also crafters there are at least as many who are not.
I love goth and industrial music, have been to hundreds of concerts, met and was friends with many band members. But I look decidedly regular. I'm looking back at my old photos, and I see one of a standard geeky guy with regular hair and glasses, wearing an admittedly hideous blue windbreaker, partying with Nik Fiend.
So this algorithm shouldn't only associate your face with your culture, but use the faces of those around you to establish your culture. But then I have friends who are in a death metal/industrial band, and their mainstream family members come to concerts to show support. So we'd have regular people labeled as being in the death metal culture if we did that.
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
Those aren't the Urban Tribes I learned in history class. Aren't they supposed to be Collina, Esquilina, Palatina and Suburana?
Defending something for which you have no part in its success is silly to me. Whether it be sports or being a Windows fanboy, I just don't get it. The blind patriotism some people have is also baffling
(A) The people most likely to do that are the ones who have the least personal accomplishments so they outsource their pride to whatever groups they can manage to identify with. It is a sign of deep insecurity.
(B) This NYT article has nothing to do with that. It is about identifying where you grew up or otherwise lived for a long period of your life based on your word and pronunciation choices.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Welcome to the tribe of loner, where everyone thinks that they're unique and that everyone else is the same.
I have a surprise for you: you are probably less unique than you think and other people are more diverse than you think (even when they are a part of a group).
In all likelihood, algorithms such as the one mentioned in the article can bin you just like it can bin anyone else. In all likelihood, the bin will accurately profile you within statistical uncertainties. Chances are that those statistical uncertainties are sufficiently large that it allows you to maintain your status as an individual (ditto for all of those other people who you seem to think agree on things).
So... this is para-dice? Not quite what I thought it would be.
Wouldn't that just make you EMO?